Eagles dominate second half against Patriots

David Kehrli @davidkehrliTN

Friday

Dec 7, 2018 at 11:07 PM

MT. HERMON — The transition from football to basketball seemed pretty seamless for Josh Robinson on Friday night.

The senior forward — after just four days of practice with the basketball team and coming off a deep run in the football state playoffs — didn’t skip a beat on the court, scoring 16 points to help power Eastern Alamance to a 76-55 season-opening victory against Southern Alamance.

"Josh played well, coming off of football with little practice," Eastern Alamance coach Jay McPherson said. "I thought they all did OK at times. I think we got a lot of potential and a lot to work with."

Robinson — the football team's leading receiver — scored 11 of his points in the second half as the Eagles took over the game.

Joining in on the Eagles’ effort was guard LJ Rogers, who made an impact on both ends of the court. He finished with 12 points.

"LJ was injured last year. He had a deep thigh bruise the day before the first game of (last) season so it took him a while to come on," McPherson said. "So he’s not injured this season and he’s ready to roll."

Rogers and several other Eastern Alamance players had no problem driving to the hoop in the second half against the Patriots (1-4). The Eagles outscored Southern Alamance 40-24 in the final half.

"We just had a lot of turnovers in the third (quarter). We’re just outmanned right now. We’re playing a small bench. We’ve got to do everything right. They had three straight free-throw box outs on that they beat us on," Southern Alamance coach Bill Flow said. "We’re still not putting our hands up on defense. We’re in the right spot on defense, we’re still not getting our hands up and closing out on shots and passes."

Southern Alamance was led in scoring by Hasten Watson with 11 points and Tevin Yellock with 10.

Caleb Hester hit a 3-pointer right before halftime to give Eastern Alamance a 34-31 lead.

Energized by a packed house and a ruckus student section, the Patriots held their own in the opening half.

"That’s kind of what we wanted. We were hoping our student section would be here for us this year. They were here for football. You’re going to feed off that," Flow said. "We told the guys this is probably the biggest crowd we’ve played in front of maybe other than the Williams game last year."

McPherson said Eastern Alamance looked like it was playing in a first game.

"We played not very well in the first half, especially. It was real sloppy like I expected," McPherson said. "I think we settled down a little bit (in the second half). Got used to the crowd. Got used to the noise. We hadn’t had a scrimmage. We’ve practiced four days as a team. I think we can get a lot better and we’re going to get a lot better."

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